spiration.

Staying on the shore path, he walked slowly toward the back of the
island and presently came out at the tidal flats. The tide was out,
leaving the rocks exposed. He sat down at the edge of the low bluff
above the flats and stared into the patches of water.

It was a hard job, trying to recall every detail of his friendship with
the little Hindu boy, but he tried. It had started in Bombay when Rick
and Scotty were on their way to Tibet with Weiss and Zircon to set up
the radar relay station for message transmission via the moon. When
their equipment was stolen, it was Chahda who took the lead in finding
it again. They had been amused by the beggar boy who had educated
himself with an old copy of _The World Almanac_. His ability to quote
anything from the "Alm-in-ack," as he called it, in English that was
sometimes pretty funny, was really astonishing. Then, at the Lost City,
he had more than proved his courage and loyalty, and the Spindrifters
had sponsored his visit to America as a reward.

For a while Chahda had attended school in America, then he had gone to
the Pacific with the Spindrift expedition to Kwangara Island. After
salvaging the remains of an ancient temple from one hundred fathoms of
water--not to mention the treasure that was found--the Spindrifters had
returned home. But Chahda had elected to remain in Hawaii with Professor
Warren of the Pacific Ethnographic Society. Later, he had gone with the
Warren scientific expedition to the South Seas, and Barby, Rick, and
Scotty had joined the party in New Caledonia. After completing part of
the expedition's work, the trawler _Tarpon_ had returned to New
Caledonia where the young people had solved the mystery of _The Phantom
Shark_. When the three Spindrifters returned home, Chahda had taken air
passage to Bombay to see his family.

"I can't remember all we talked about," Rick muttered to himself. "We
talked about everything and anything. Except codes. I can't remember
that we ever talked about codes."

He got up, noticing that the crew of builders were in their barge,
returning to the mainland for the night. They were trucking materials to
a point on the shore near Spindrift, using an old wood road, then taking
the stuff the rest of the way by barge.

It was getting on to dinnertime. He took the woods path back, passing by
the new cottages. They were nearing completion, the outsides already
finished. Beyond the cottages was the farm run by the Hu